P-Town with the Hizz
Nate’s sister and brother-in-law made the plea waaayyyyy back in September: Who wants to watch Hazel the weekend of Oct. 24? They gave us plenty of notice, and at the time we didn’t have existing plans for that weekend, so we jumped at the excuse to play with our 1-year old niece for a couple of days.
Turns out, there was a LOT going on last weekend: 2 baby showers, a 1-year birthday for a friend’s baby (are you sensing a theme here?)… but we kept our commitment and headed south to Portland. On our way out of town we stopped by my grandparent’s place for dinner. As she answered the door, PoPo said to us, “I’m so glad you’re going to babysit. It’s good practice!” We told her shortly thereafter that we’re getting a puppy, to which she replied, “I knew it. All our grandchildren are getting dogs instead of having kids.”
I think Hazel still qualifies as practice, but I don’t think our new puppy will look like this after he eats his meal:
We had a great time. On Saturday we all got to play together, and since the weather was GORGEOUS, we went to play outside. The Columbia River Gorge is within a short drive from Portland, so we made for the hills… err… glacial-carved landscape.
Then we went to visit a prehistoric, gigantic fish named Herman. I kid you not. He’s old, he’s huge, and he’s ugly.
On Sunday, it was just us and the Hizz. We went to a coffee shop — she charmed all the coffeehouse guests. We carved a pumpkin — she wasn’t at all interested in the process. We took her to a minor-friendly bar — because we’re the aunt and uncle, and can do that 
Nate didn’t get any work done, but he didn’t really expect to. And we had a great weekend in P-town.
Gorgeous autumn colors